


Shiro Appreciation Society

by LadyMerlin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Authorial Handwaving, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Good Dad!Shiro, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Historical References, No Angst, Nostalgia, Not Beta Read, Pop Culture, Slice of Life, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Space: The Final Frontier, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Teen Crush, Teen Crush(es), The Author Regrets Nothing, The Author stans NASA, meme references, takes place during season 1 (because that's all I've seen)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-06 10:57:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMerlin/pseuds/LadyMerlin
Summary: Club rules include the popular “If You See Something, Say Something,” and the less popular “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen.”(Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali 2018! <3)





	Shiro Appreciation Society

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a soft and tender look at how the younger Paladins see Shiro as a father figure, because from what I can see in Season 1 he's A+ Dad Material (no, I'm not being sarcastic). It was _supposed_ to be for Fathers' Day.
> 
> However, because there's something incurably wrong with me, it turned into this.
> 
> Against the backdrop of the drama I've seen on Tumblr, I'd like to assure everyone that this is a **GEN** work. Although mentions are made of awkward teen crushes (see the tags), they are utterly unrequited and not actually serious. I mostly intended to refer to that first blush of "holy shit you're beautiful and competent and I love you", of which nothing ever comes. You know what I mean. So do the Paladins. Do  not take this seriously.

“But,” Shiro says, desperation tainting his words, “you guys called me  _Dad_  half the time!”

“Listen,” Pidge replies, stern hands on hips in complete contrast to the little smirk tugging at her lips, “we all agreed that it was better than calling you Daddy.”

Shiro goes absolutely still and closes his eyes, exhales long and slow. “I mean, we didn’t want you to die of a heart attack, y’know?” Pidge is relentless. Shiro doesn’t respond, but there’s a tiny  _pained_  crease in his brow, and Allura is watching with amusement writ clearly on her face.

And that’s how the four paladins reveal a secret they’ve carried for literal years from their fifth.

-

It  _began_  with that goddamn hot water pool in the basement of the Castle. No one was entirely sure how it worked or why it was there, but no one questioned it too much – baths were a luxury. Hot baths were… well. Shiro in particular took to them like a duck to, well,  _water_ ; spending most of his downtime neck deep in the milky mineral pools, eyes closed and long-lashes stuck wetly to high cheekbones, mouth soft with pleasure.

“It’s been years since I’ve been in an Onsen. This is the closest I think I’m going to get.” They make him so happy that no one protests when he asks them to join him, and eventually they all begin to enjoy it too. The hot water works miracles on aching muscles, and that’s why they keep going – at first.

The others wear bathing suits – old, second-hand clothes which Coran had dug out from somewhere, because new clothes are in somewhat short supply – but Shiro is always first in and last to leave, like the leader he is, so they don’t notice at first. At least, not until Shiro’s communicator beeps and he steps out of the pool to pick it up, displaying miles and miles and  _miles_  of wet skin and absolutely nothing else.

Lance – as always – has zero subtlety, and cannot make himself stop staring at Shiro’s butt,  _holy shit_. The man has muscles where Lance didn’t even  _know_  people could have muscles, and they’re all tight and rippling under his skin, and Lance really  _really_  wants to touch, but for the knowledge that this is his hero and his leader and his friend, oh  _god_.

Keith and Hunk are more subtle about their gawking, but Pidge - whom everyone suddenly remembers is a fifteen year old girl - goes utterly scarlet, resulting in Hunk dragging her out of the water to cool her down. Even Keith is flustered in his own stoic way. None of them make eye contact with each other for long awkward moments.

Shiro returns into a silent pool, instantly noticing something is off. “What?” He asks, worried.

“You’re um. Naked?” Hunk ventures, because he is a brave man.

Shiro blinks and then laughs. “Yeah. Back home, you don’t wear clothes into hot springs.”

“So like, people just bathe naked? In public?” Shiro shrugs and nods. “Oh.”

“Does it make you guys uncomfortable?” Shiro asks, suddenly looking a little more worried. There’s a flurry of denials and they leave it at that. Or at least, they would have. Or, they  _should_ have.

“So, who else thinks that our fearless leader is just unfairly attractive?” Pidge’s voice is clear, and echoes a little bit in the hot pool chamber. Her hand is up in the air, and the only sign that she’s affected at all is the faint blush in her cheeks.

Hunk’s hand goes up in the air immediately, and he only looks a little embarrassed about it. Hunk’s the kind of straight-forward person who knows exactly what, and who he is, and isn’t ashamed of it. Lance’s hand follows suit, even though his shoulders are up to his ears, like he can’t quite believe what he’s doing. Keith’s hands come up to cover his face, but that’s an admission in-and-of-itself, and he doesn’t need to say any more.

“Aren’t you like, fifteen?” Lance asks, discomfort clear in the way his mouth is a tight slash, and his shoulders are still tense.

“I mean, yeah, I don’t want to do anything to him but I’ve got eyes, ‘m not blind. Besides, it’s not like you guys are  _that_  much older than me. We’re all still minors.”

“I mean technically, we’re in  _space—_ ” Hunk starts, but clearly thinks better of it when Keith looks up to glare. Hunk huffs and Keith finally looks away. “Why are  _you_ so upset anyway?”

Keith’s head snaps to look at Hunk again, glare magnified ten-fold. Hunk meets it unflinchingly. “He says I'm like a brother to him.”

It takes a moment for the absurdity of that statement to land in the silence between them, and Lance is the first one to break it with a cackle. Hunk breaks next, followed by Pidge, and then even Keith is grinning a little, cheeks still flushed with a mix of humour and embarrassment.

“That  _ass_  though,” Lance whispers once they’ve all calmed down, and that only sends them into peals of laughter, echoing all the way out of the large chamber and into the corridors of the empty castle.

 _That’s_ where it all begins, if you don’t take into account four teenagers and one kinda-adult being launched into space on the back of a giant robotic space lion to fight intergalactic evil.

-

None of them ever do anything about – or to – their attractive leader. He’s their leader and they’re – the paladins are the closest thing they have to family, out there. In the vast expanse of space, they want to be as close together as possible, and acting on impossible crushes was more likely than not to send them spiralling apart from each other. No one wants that.

Still, it doesn’t take much for Pidge to draft a formal charter for the Shiro Appreciation Society. A cute shimmy here and a really,  _really_ nice smile there, and she’s gone. She nominates Keith as the President, because watching him get embarrassed over his feelings is the second most entertaining thing to do in Space (the first being – confusing Coran and Allura with English metaphors). Her nomination is seconded and thirded within the blink of an eye and then Keith really has no choice.

Club rules include the popular “If You See Something, Say Something,” and the less popular “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen.”

-

Once Lance accidentally sends a desperate “I CAN N O T” over the Paladin chat, which he’d intended to send to the SAS chat, when Shiro takes down a Galra soldier with such flare that his blood goes superhot with lust, singing through his veins. Thankfully his Lion has video footage, and they all spend an hour later that evening watching that video and complaining about how unfairly tight Shiro’s pants are, and how  _ridiculous_  his thighs look when he picks up the soldier and throws him over his back, and how it’s a miracle his shirts haven’t ripped yet from the flexing of his pecs and abs and biceps.

There’s a lot of uncomfortable squirming and delicate adjustment of clothing, and everyone is avoiding each other’s eyes until Pidge breaks the awkwardness herself. “There are at least three boners in this room. I can’t believe how gay this is.”

Lance clears his throat and Keith rolls his eyes but neither of them deny it. Hunk puts up a hand. “I don’t have a boner,” he ventures, and three pairs of eyes lower to his lap, making him squeak and blush, but there’s really nothing there, which is hardly surprising. For all his nervous excitability, Hunk really is the least hot-blooded of the four of them.

Pidge shrugs, slouching back into her seat. “It’s ok. I have a boner.”

Lance opens his mouth to object, even though it hardly matters. “But you can’t have a boner! You’re a girl!”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “I can, too.”

“But!” Lance gestures loudly, waving at her entire body, and this argument is familiar, and rote. It’s also a complete joke – Lance and Pidge hardly ever mean what they say to each other outside battle scenarios. Out of the four of them, it’s Lance and Pidge who are most like siblings – sometimes they argue for the sake of arguing, and it’s comforting for everyone who has a sibling, and nerve-wracking for everyone who doesn’t. 

Keith scoffs. “Pidge can have a boner if she wants!”

The door slides open and four heads swivel to look at Shiro, who’s watching them with wide eyes and an open mouth, clearly having heard the last exclamation. His teeth click when his mouth closes and he clears his throat, excruciatingly loud in the silence. “Is this – is this something we need to talk about?”

“No!” come four voices in horrified unison. Pidge looks like she wants to melt into her seat, and the others don’t look any less embarrassed.

“Okay, I'm just going to go then,” Shiro says, stepping backwards through the sliding door and leaving.

A piteous moaning sound starts up and it takes a beat for them to realize that Pidge is making it, sinking off the chair to her knees and then flat onto the ground, face down, fists clenched in her nest of hair. “Oh my  _goooooood_.”

It’s interrupted by laughter, and the moaning stops when they realize it’s Keith laughing, giggling actually, arms wrapped around his belly and face all scrunched up. “His face,” Keith wheezes, “did you see his  _face_ , oh my god,” and actually yeah, it had been pretty funny.

Hunk hunts down a recording of that too, and adds it to their common Spank Bank, which is what it is, even though no one calls it that.

-

“If Shiro ever finds out about this, I'm going to fling myself into the sun,” Keith says casually, one day.

“I dunno,” Pidge replies. “I mean, if I was going to die I think I’d want him to know that I’ve spent a lot of time appreciating his  _ass_ ets.”

“I think you’ve been spending too much time with Lance,” Hunk chips in, but Lance’s mouth is full of green goo so he can’t defend himself from what is clearly a slanderous statement.

“But guys, on a different note, do you think there’s something happening between Shiro and Allura?”

They contemplate this for a long moment. “I mean, maybe it’s because they’re the most grown-up people here? And they bond over that?”

“So in other words, you mean that Shiro is dad and Allura is mom, and we’re the disobedient children.” Keith’s voice is flat, but even he can’t completely disguise his amusement.

“You do realize that in this scenario, you’ve painted us as having inappropriate crushes on our dad, right?” Hunk’s voice is strangled, like he’s supressing laughter.

Keith, Pidge, and Lance splutter into unanimous denials, making Hunk burst into peals of laughter. “Gross!” Pidge exclaims, “So gross!”

“Ya’ll need Jesus,” Lance drawls when everyone’s calmed down.

“Don’t pretend you haven’t had the same filthy thoughts as the rest of us McClaine,” Hunk says, at the same time Keith says “I thought I was the only one allowed to say  _ya’ll_?”

“I was saying it  _ironically_ ,” Lance snarks back.

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” Hunk pipes and graciously accepts a high five from Pidge.

“I'm missing something,” Keith comments, and the three of them turn to look at him. Lance immediately takes on a mournful demeanour and Pidge wipes a fake tear from her eye. “You poor deprived child,” Lance whispers.

“I'm older than you,” Keith deadpans, but is ignored, and that’s how they all end up piled on the comfiest couch in the den, watching The Princess Bride on Pidge’s iPhone, one of two movies which she’d downloaded before they’d had to leave Earth.

“What’s the other one?” Keith asks. Pidge refuses to meet his eyes and goes completely red.

“Oh my god,” Lance says, “is it porn? Oh my god, Pigeon Holt, do you have a  _porn_  on your phone? I'm calling the police!”

“It’s  _not_ PORN!” Pidge shrieks and throws herself at Lance, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Years of familiarity from the Garrison mean that she knows exactly where his weak points are, and attacks them shamelessly with pointed fingertips, making him screech and writhe.

Still, sometimes there’s no way to compensate for sheer size, and Lance has always been bigger than Pidge – not difficult when she hasn’t grown an inch in years. He’s just about pinned her to the ground when the door slides open and Shiro walks in. He stops in his tracks at the sight of Pidge flat on her back on the floor, Lance straddling her hips, fingers wrapped around Pidge’s scrawny wrists keeping them away from his soft spots.

“Uh,” he says.

“This is  _not_  what it looks like,” Pidge says, instantly making everything worse. Shiro looks like he would rather be  _anywhere_  but here, like he wants the ground to crack open and swallow him whole. It’s a risky wish to make, when it’s something that could actually possibly happen.

“Uh,” he says again, and his scarred cheeks go ruddy red, and he looks upwards at the ceiling as if it might provide some guidance. “Are you guys using protection?” he asks, and Pidge and Lance shriek, immediately flinging themselves into opposite corners of the room. They don’t stop shrieking until Shiro has retreated in sheer self-defence, and Keith and Hunk are in tears from laughing so hard.

“Every day,” Pidge whispers, sounding haunted, “we stray further from God’s light.”

She refuses to talk to Shiro for entire cycles after he sends Allura to give her the sex talk. Shiro can’t – or won’t – even make eye-contact with Lance, Keith, and Hunk until he gives them the sex talk himself, and then the entire castle is full of awkward silence until they’re attacked by a random Galra fleet in the middle of nowhere and have to form Voltron while dressed in their underwear.

“I'm not having sex with Lance,” Pidge says, when they’re all gathered in the Castle again, still dressed in their skivvies but considerably more messed up than they’d been just hours before. Keith is bleeding where he’d hit his head, and Lance’s fingertips had been singed by a sparking console. Lance nods furiously, bed head flopping all over the place.

“Okay,” Shiro says, awkwardly.

“No, Shiro, listen. I'm  _not_ having sex with Lance,” she repeats, emphasizing each word. “We are not having sex. I would as soon have sex with Matt as I would with Lance. We are  _not—_ ”

“Okay, I get it, it’s okay Pidge. I'm sorry I thought you were, um.” Shiro rubs a hand on the back of his neck and his biceps flex with the movement. His sleeping tank top is low cut and ratty from long use, displaying a generous amount of side boob. Mouths go dry across the hanger and someone swallows audibly.

“He’s like my um,” Pidge chokes on the words, “my brother.” Her eyes are tracing a drop of sweat making its way down the back of Shiro’s neck.

Shiro brightens. “Like me and Keith,” he says, turning to smile fondly at Keith, who staggers backwards like he’s been shot and tries to play it off as being tired. They all stifle their laughter as Keith’s face goes blank until Shiro leaves the room, apparently oblivious to the by-play.

“Fuck my life,” Keith murmurs, and Lance hums the funeral dirge until Hunk actually does collapse and they have to stick him in a healing pod for 12 hours because he’d hit his head during the firefight.

-

“So, what’s the other movie you have on your phone anyway?” Lance eventually asks, when they’re finally over the utter humiliation and back to being themselves.

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Piranha 3DD.”

“No. Fucking. Way,” Lance swears, and Hunk chokes on his mid-cycle goo.

“Uh, what’s that?” Keith asks, dooming himself instantly.

“You shouldn’t have asked,” Hunk informs him, as Lance and Pidge converge on him with malicious glee in their eyes.

“It’s a masterpiece of the modern cinematic age,” Pidge informs him. “You’re going to love it,” she says and really, Keith should have realised what was going on when Hunk conveniently found an excuse to be somewhere else for that movie night. He really should have realised that the best-case outcome was mental scarring, and the worst-case was – well.

“I feel like her breasts could be used as flotation devices,” Keith ponders, and Pidge and Lance snigger but don’t disagree.

“Um,” Shiro says, as a naked woman is eaten by a flying shark on the tiny iPhone screen. Pidge and Lance are curled around Keith, a blanket wrapped around them, the phone propped precariously on a cushion on his knees. 

“Have you ever learned to knock?” Pidge asks, not lifting her head from Keith’s chest.

“I'm not too old to learn,” Shiro mumbles, and excuses himself, blushing.

“I long for the sweet embrace of death,” Lance whispers when he’s gone, and they laugh so hard that the phone falls over and they have to spend ten minutes finding their spot again.

The next time they’re fighting a giant monster that tries to eat one of their lions, Keith says “titanium motherfuckers, eat  _this_ ,” before slicing it in half with his sword. It’s a good thing the fight ends there because the blue, green, and yellow paladins are laughing too hard to function. Keith is standing there with a pleased little grin on his face, like he’s just won  _all_  the battles.

“I can’t breathe,” Lance is wheezing, “I can’t  _breathe_.”

“Is he having genuine medical difficulties?” Allura asks but no one answers because they’re too busy laughing. It’s enough of an answer, anyway.

-

In a world where four teenagers and one barely-adult hadn’t been swept off the planet and into space to work together to operate a giant high-tech alien robot for an indefinite period of time, things might have been different. In this world, well.

Initially the boys are a little weird about it, and so is Pidge, honestly, but there’s nothing to be done. When they form Voltron, everything works as per usual, but there’s an unusual undercurrent of discomfort threading through their bond and it puts everyone on edge. It seems to be coming from Pidge, but they know Pidge only ever talks when she wants to talk, so they leave it alone. Only this time, a couple of cycles pass, and she still doesn’t talk about it.

Shiro and Keith are all for confronting her, and Hunk thinks they should wait for her to talk about it, and surprisingly Lance is the one who eventually snaps. “Leave it alone, guys, oh my god.”

“Something’s wrong with her, Lance. We’re paladins – no secrets, remember?”

Lance’s eye-roll is uncharacteristic. “She’s on her period, idiot,” he snaps, and Keith’s mouth clicks shut. Even Shiro looks a little stunned, like it’s something he hadn’t even considered. Honestly, it had been one of the first things that had occurred to Lance after Pidge revealed she was a girl, and he’d been a little glad that at least Allura was a girl, even though he wasn’t sure Allura had the same biology as human girls.

“Uh,” Keith ventures. “Will she be okay?”

Lance rolls his eyes again. “Yeah, of course she will. She’s probably got cramps and muscle aches and stuff, and doesn’t need insensitive boys breathing down her neck about it.”

“How do you know so much about this?” Shiro asks, looking a little ashamed of himself.

“He has sisters,” Hunk replies. “Like three of them who’ve probably hit puberty already.”

Before anyone has the chance to question further, Lance is gone.

The gamma shift finds Pidge curled up in Lance’s lap, listening to music on a shared iPod. She’s more than half asleep, fingers curled into the front of Lance’s t-shirt, and there’s a mini-Mars bar wrapper lying on the side-table. Keith kinda has to resist the urge to lick the empty wrapper – it’s been so long since he’s even tasted chocolate. Lance looks sleepy too, eyes half-lidded and gaze hazy.

“Do you think a healing pod would help?” Keith asks, keeping his voice low.

Lance blinks and then shakes his head. “She’s not sick, or broken. It’s natural. The periods, not the cramps. I don’t know how the healing pod would diagnose this, if it’s even normal for Altean biology. A hot water bottle would probably do more good, or a Panadol.”

But they only have limited supplies of pain-killers – whatever Keith had thought to stuff in his backpack from his supplies at the shack. None of them had expected to be away from Earth so long. The healing pods are a god-send – for every ailment, major or not, it works. But often enough they don’t have time to use the healing pods, and it doesn’t feel like they can justify it for every minor headache or muscle ache. Lance himself had never realised how reliant he was on over-the-counter meds until all they had between the five of them was a half-empty box of baby Panadol and a fistful of Vitamin D supplement.

Keith only nods and leaves the room, returning fifteen minutes later with a makeshift hot water bottle. It’s made of two layers of rubber tubing clumsily sealed on both ends, pumped full of hot spring water. It’s crude, but effective, and more than enough for their purposes. It’s clearly Hunk’s handiwork.

Pidge is more-or-less back to her usual self the next cycle, but her discomfort reads loud and clear when they’re in Voltron and their emotions are running freely across their shared channels.

Of course, that’s exactly when she, Lance and Shiro get stranded on a small planet which emits impossibly strong EMP emissions at twenty-four hour intervals. Black, Blue, and Green had been unfortunate enough to get caught, but Yellow and Red had escaped. It’s mostly good news, because the planet is uninhabited, warm, and fairly hospitable. Keith and Hunk know exactly where they are, and will be back as soon as they figure out how to avoid the EMP bursts.

Lance decides to head off to find water and food, because there’s really no telling how long they’ll be there, leaving Shiro and Pidge alone to set up camp.

She starts working on an EMP shield as soon as she manages to unearth her notebook and a pen, even though it’ll be no use to Keith and Hunk without a way to transmit it out to them. Still, it’ll be useful as a future modification on the lions. Shiro starts scavenging whatever equipment he can from the crash site, stowing it neatly aboard the three lions. It’s a godsend that they’ve got their lions – it means they don’t have to worry about shelter in case of rain or storm.

Unfortunately, none of their electronics are working, which means the heating isn’t either, and nightfall brings with it dramatically lowered temperature.

Lance brings back bottles full of drinkable water and a brace of local rodents. They look like rabbits but they have six legs and antennae alongside their floppy ears, so Pidge hesitates to call them anything, really. They’re edible when cooked according to Shiro’s recollection, and it’s not like they have a choice either way.

They only have two sleeping bags between the three of them, and Pidge is already shivering, so Lance and Shiro unanimously agree to tuck her between the two of them. They sleep like brackets, curled around Pidge, whose fingers are in turn curled around a communicator which might as well be a brick, for how useful it is now.

When Lance wakes that morning, Pidge is awake, but she doesn’t look alright. Her face is red and she looks like she’s about to explode. Behind her, Shiro is still asleep.

“Do you need to pee?” Lance whispers, but Pidge shakes her head. “Then what’s wrong?”

“I'm the little spoon,” she hisses back, and Shiro stirs. His hand is draped over her waist and Lance feels an unholy grin stretching across his face.

“Oh my god,” he says.

“Don’t you  _dare_ ,” she replies, but it’s too late. He’s inching backwards out from under the blanket, looking for his phone or a camera.

“Your camera’s been fried by the EMP anyway,” comes Shiro’s sleep-scratchy voice, and both of them freeze. “And no one will ever believe you.”

“Nooooooooooo,” Lance wails, dramatically dropping to his knees and rending his hair. “ _Betrayal_.” 

They both ignore him. “Sorry Pidge, your teeth were chattering in the night. Didn’t want you falling sick.”

She honestly doesn’t know if she blushes or not, but she nods and thanks him anyway. It had been a really comfortable night after all. She may never recover.

-

There’s a lot of stuff in the castle which they don’t recognize or understand. Machines and equipment and all manner of gadgets and doo-hickeys (Hunk’s words).

It’s a project for slow days – because there definitely are slow days in-between weeks of relentless action and adventure – to go through rooms full of mysterious shit (Lance’s words) and come up with an inventory of potentially useful tools, quit fooling around guys (Keith’s words).

Pidge thinks it’s a treasure trove. They wander through long-forgotten rooms full of artefacts from another universe, mementos of so much  _life_ , and sure, it’s a little sad to think that all these people are gone now, but Pidge thinks it’d be sadder if no one ever took the time to remember them at all.

Every day of exploration leads to a week or more spent in the lab, trying to figure out how to make things work, whether they’re safe or usable or if, like on one memorable occasion, they emit incredibly specific frequencies which make hundreds of birds come to nest in the castle turrets (that had been a  _trip_ ).

There’s things they can’t figure out and things that they can. Some things are useless, some are useful, and some are downright dangerous. And some things improve the quality of life so much that it’s difficult to remember what life had been like before them.

One such thing is the 3D printer. It’s really high-tech and definitely not as limited as the ones Pidge remembers seeing on Earth, but that’s what it essentially is.

No one expects it to be so dang useful, but the first time Pidge is putting together an ion shield and finds herself short of just one screw (shut up Lance), the 3D printer literally saves their lives in a pinch, and it’s, well. It’s a revelation.

After that, the 3D printer is everyone’s best friend. Lance uses it to print out a Rubik’s cube, and Keith predictably prints out gym equipment. Hunk prints out bookends and a knife block and door stoppers even though none of the doors in the castle are the swinging type, just because he can.

Not even Shiro in unaffected, and quietly asks Pidge to print him a pair of chopsticks if she has a spare minute and some spare materials (naturally, Pidge – and the other Paladins – spend a good five hours figuring out how to print the best chopsticks ever, but that’s a story for another time).

All the while, Allura and Coran watch in amusement, while all five Paladins lose their sanity over what is effectively a child’s toy.

The bad idea – as bad ideas generally do – comes from Lance, who resents that allegation and insists that his objection be recorded in the SAS Meeting Minutes.

 _It’s Father’s Day_ , he says.  _It’s important to think of our fathers and associated father figures_ , he says.  _Stop mocking me_ , he says. (They don’t.)

But eventually Pidge gives in, because she can’t stop thinking about her own Dad, and in his absence, she can’t deny that Shiro has loved her and cared for her as well as her own father had. Once Pidge is in, everyone is in. They sit down to brainstorm what to get for Shiro, but honestly it’s not easy.

They don’t have money, and even if they did it’s not like they can just pop around the corner to a mall or pick up something from a shop. They’ve got nothing but their wits and what’s in the castle around them. They think about it for  _entire cycles_  even though they don’t really have that much time to spare to spare. It turns into an obsession, and every minute they’re not fighting evil, they spend thinking about a Father’s Day gift.

Pidge thinks it’s a little weird because it definitely started as a joke. She doesn’t think Lance ever intended for anyone to take it so seriously, but now everyone does, including him. She thinks it’s got something to do with how, so far from everything they know, they have to cling to whatever normalcy they can find. It hardly matters, because now they’re committed to it.

Hunk is the one who chances upon the idea, one morning. They’re brewing a drink that vaguely resembles coffee, not because it looks/tastes/smells like coffee but because it’s a fairly palatable accompaniment to green goo and they make do with what they have.

(Allura had once tried to tell Pidge that she shouldn’t drink it, because it stunted growth in children. Pidge had just picked up the entire Altean coffee-pot-equivalent and downed it, not once breaking eye-contact with Allura. Allura had never objected again.)

The point is, they all drink Altean-coffee out of generic white cups, which Pidge personally thinks are way too small to serve their purpose. She prefers more efficient mechanisms to transport Altean-coffee into her mouth. She’s a little disappointed it took so long for her to figure it out.

“Mugs!” she exclaims, and runs for the 3D printer. No one follows her. Altean coffee is not a stimulant. Mornings are hard enough without an overabundance of enthusiasm. That’s why she argues that  _she_  should be the one to pick the design, and not the others who wouldn’t ever have come up with it on their own, if not for Pidge.

“Listen honey,” Lance starts before Hunk covers his face with a large hand. The last time Lance had called Pidge ‘honey’ in that particular tone, they’d not spoken with each other for a full three cycles. Hunk lets go eventually, but not before Lance manages to lick his palm.

Finally they decide to each design a mug, and then they’d vote for the best one to give Shiro. It seems the most meritocratic way of solving the problem.

“You never told us you were colour-blind,” Lance says casually. Pidge chokes back a laugh, because even though both of them know Keith isn’t really (he couldn’t be a pilot if he was), the mug he’s created is really,  _truly_  ugly. It’s somehow dull and blinding at the same time, and there’s a bit on the side which definitely looks like a penis. It looks diseased.

“Words can’t hurt me, these shades are Gucci,” Keith mumbles, still studying his mug intently, like he’s not sure of what he’s created either. Hunk spit-takes and Pidge wonders out loud how Keith managed to get so much more meme-savvy after he lost Earth-based internet access. She suspects the answer is Lance – it sounds like something he’d say.

“Okay, so no one’s voting for that one, right? Right,” Lance says, not waiting for any replies. No one objects anyway, including Keith, who puts the mug to a side and carefully doesn’t look at it. “Ground rules, you can’t vote for your own mug. Allura is tie-breaker, yeah?”

“May I participate as well?” Coran asks, as enthusiastic as ever, so they let him. They don’t need Allura in the end. The voting process is surprisingly unanimous – everyone likes Hunk’s mug best, because it’s the same shade of black as the Black Lion, and has the words “ _Galaxy’s Best Dad_ ” written in the shade of purple that accents Shiro’s outfit. It’s  _perfect_.

(They make Shiro cry tears of joy, which is an achievement Pidge is proud of for pretty much the rest of her life.)

-

Things change once the castle starts moving regularly.

After the initial misadventures, when they’ve got their act together and are mostly working as a competent, cohesive force for good, there’s less time for a lot of stuff.

Keith secretly thinks it’s a good thing that they bonded so much before things got crazy, because even as anti-social as he is, he knows how important it is that they trust each other.

They do. They’re family now; even the people with real families like Lance, Pidge, and Hunk say so. He doesn’t really assign them roles in his head, because that would be a little weird, but they’re as much his family as anyone else has ever been.

Oddly enough, it makes him nostalgic for Earth, even though he never had something like this, back there. He kind of wishes that they hadn’t had to go through all of this to become friends.

It would have been nice if he could have been friends with Lance and Pidge and Hunk at school, without the threat of intergalactic death and destruction hanging over their heads. He can’t help but wonder if anyone would have wanted to be friends with  _him_ , if not for the fact that he’d repeatedly saved their lives out there, in Space. He does his best to quash the voice in his head that says they’re only friends with him out of gratitude and debt, but it doesn’t always work.

Thankfully he’s tired enough from months of non-stop activity to easily put the thoughts out of mind this time. Naps are more important than existential crises.

He dozes at his post until a proximity alarm starts wailing. Unidentified flying objects are no rarity out in Space, but as a free-floating object they need to be careful of what’s around them. Even a glancing blow from a large object with a tangential trajectory would be enough to send the castle skittering off in unexpected directions. He turns on all the viewing screens and messages the rest of the paladins to prepare themselves, just in case.

The object approaching them is a parabolic disc covered in antennae, and almost certainly not natural. It looks a little bit like an old-fashioned cable dish, but much larger, made out of a dark grey metallic material.

Shiro is the first to arrive in the viewing room, still dripping from his exercise routine. The sight doesn’t make Keith’s mouth go dry anymore, but he’s not blind. He passes Shiro a towel, which he accepts with a quick grin. “What is it?” he asks when he sees the object on Keith’s screen.

Keith shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not natural, but it’s not emitting any frequencies we can recognize here. It’s just travelling past.”

“Trojan horse?” Shiro asks, because they’ve seen that one before, and have good reason to be wary.

Keith shakes his head. “No life-signs, and no electrical impulses either. I’m pretty sure it’s dead.”

Hunk arrives next and announces his arrival with a screech. It’s strangled and suppressed, but a screech none-the-less, and both Shiro and Keith turn to stare. Hunk is excitable, sure, but not like this. His eyes are glued to the screen though, and he doesn’t even seem to notice Shiro and Keith. “It’s the Voyager,” he whispers, almost reverent.

Both of them make the connection almost instantly. The Voyager Space Probe. An ancient connection to their home planet. It’s come such a terribly long way. It’s devastating to think that it’s probably not even transmitting anymore; that maybe people at home have given up even looking for it. “Can we?” Hunk asks, and there’s no question about it. Between two lions, they make quick work of bringing the probe back into the castle as Coran looks on, curious.

Pidge searches for an access panel, but her hands (and her tools) are far gentler than usual. Her eyes are a little misty. It doesn’t make any sense, but the fact that something from Earth has reached them, even with primitive technology, and survived – well. It’s just nice to think that it’s possible. That one day, this might be them. Maybe one day they’ll take the Voyager home.

At least, a girl can dream.

The back panel comes loose with only a little jiggling, and Pidge pass it to Hunk who cradles it reverently. Inside there are a handful of objects, neatly packaged in steel tins stuffed with packing peanuts. Shiro uses his pocket knife to slice through the packing tape and pry open the containers, and there’s a vague Birthday-cum-Christmas-celebration feeling in the air, like they’re opening a present addressed to all of them.

The biggest one is a large circular tin which contains two golden discs, and a palm-sized booklet several inches thick, containing a detailed description of the contents of the disc.

“Did anyone think to include a record player on this thing?” Lance asks, a moment later. Which, actually, is a valid question. Even now on Earth Pidge thinks they’d be hard pressed to find a record player. What were the chances that extra-terrestrials would have the exact type of equipment required to play their records? Or that their sources of energy would be compatible with human electronics?

“Don’t worry about it,” Allura says with a grin. “We’ve definitely got something that can read your… shiny disc and broadcast it.” Pidge hands it over to Allura who accepts it with due care, and Coran fiddles with some controls until a slot opens up in the wall. Pidge swallows hard when Allura deposits the disc in the slot, but she doesn’t say anything.

There’s a little bit of crackling before the first chords of a very familiar song start playing. Pidge is crying even before George Harrison starts crooning softly, covering her face with her hands to hide her tears. Lance has his arms wrapped around her before anyone can even blink, and even Shiro looks a little watery-eyed, but the most surprising thing is when Keith starts singing along, almost absent-mindedly, in a melodious tenor.

All eyes are on him as the song fades into the background, chorus line on repeat. He squirms a little when he notices that everyone is watching him, but he doesn’t hide. It’s a sign of how much he’s changed. “I never thought I’d hear that song again,” he says, wistfully. No one teases him, which is a sign of how much the rest of them have changed.

“What a lovely song,” Allura comments. “It sounds like sunshine.”

“Yeah,” Hunk replies. “The Beatles did tend to sound like that. I’d forgotten that this song was even uploaded onto the Voyager.”

Lance exhales deeply and Shiro and Pidge follow suit, almost in unison. “Suddenly things don’t seem so bad after all, do they?” Shiro asks, smiling a little. They shake their heads absently.

“Play it again?” Pidge asks, breaking the contemplative silence that follows. Allura presses a button and the song starts again.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Shiro says, and his voice is so sincere that it’s all Pidge can do to avoid breaking down. “I wouldn’t want anyone else as my Paladins.”

“We love you too, Shiro,” Hunk replies.

“Some more than others,” Lance pipes up, unthinkingly. There’s a beat, and then an uproar as Keith flings himself at Lance and covers his face with his sweaty towel to prevent him from saying anything else. Pidge is screaming and Hunk has covered his face, and Shiro and Allura are left blinking in shock at the sudden outburst.

“Sorry, what?” Shiro asks, blinking out of his daze when the noise dies down a bit. Lance is still pinned beneath Keith, struggling to get free.

“Nothing,” he says, and Lance nods vigorously under the towel smothering him.

“No, guys, you know what, I think it’s time we tell him,” Pidge says, a wicked smile on her face. “We need to punish Lance for breaking the first rule of SAS.”

“Don’t talk about SAS,” chime Hunk and Keith obediently, in unison. Lance’s struggle intensifies.

“I feel like I’ve stumbled across a cult,” Shiro mumbles to Allura, who just watches with amusement.

“Oh, you have,” Pidge answers the unasked question. “Now, where do I begin? Oh yes. SAS stands for the _Shiro Appreciation Society_ …”

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't clear, the song I'm referring to is "Here Comes The Sun" by The Beatles, a song which absolutely sounds like sunshine. 
> 
> The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph loaded onto the Voyager spacecraft, which was launched into space in 1977. Rumour has it that Carl Sagan, who was responsible for curating the record, tried to have the song included in the records. He was (allegedly) unsuccessful due to copyright issues, but a girl can dream (and take creative liberties).
> 
> According to Wikipedia, Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales). To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's), and printed messages from U.S. president Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. The record also includes the message _Per aspera ad astra_ in Morse code.
> 
> For scale: Voyager 1 is currently 18.8 billion kilometers away from Earth, and is the furthest human-made object from the Earth. To date, it is still in contact with the Deep Space Network.
> 
> Yes, Space _does_ make me cry, why do you ask?


End file.
